All The Projects

(Except One.)

I just may have mentioned that I have been casting on new projects even though there have been others on the needles. And it really hasn't bothered me which, considering older posts, is quite a surprise.

Here is a photo of all my project bags containing WIPs.



To save you counting there are seven and I forgot the never ending shawl.

The blue bag at the back contains this shawl.

This is a pattern that requires concentration so I do not get to work on it every day. There are now over 500 stitches but I am only 6 rows from the bind off. I am playing yarn chicken as I want to use all the yarn as it is a gradient but I certainly do not want to have to undo any rows.

From left to right the projects are as follows.


A hat for charity that I started on the way home from vacation. The pattern is Better Late Than Never Beanies and will be the second one I have made. The project is in a plastic bag as I just grabbed the bag of yarn and crochet hook before going away and have not put the project in a different bag.

Next in the bag shown here is this project which I started on vacation and seems to be only-on-vacation project. Although when I finish some of the other projects then I'm sure I'll pick it up again. I'm not quite half-way through.





This is nearly finished; 6 rows before bind off. This is the other project where I am playing yarn chicken although I will not mind too much if I have to undo any rows if I run out of yarn too soon as I have already undone over 50 rows when I found a mistake.

The butterfly bag has this project.

They are some mittens for a Christmas present. I started them so that I can slowly work on gift knitting this year plus I needed something simple to work on and the rib fit the bill. I am loving how this yarn is knitting up and feel a little sad that it is a gift and not for me.

The bag that says fiber space contains, funnily enough, the yarn I bought at that store. I had purchased two skeins of a DK weight to make a two-coloured shawl but I did not have a pattern in mind. On 4 August a new shawl pattern was released and I decided the yarn would work and as the designer was holding a KAL, I cast on.


The brown paper bag contains the yarn and project for the mystery shawl. Originally they were going to go into the butterfly bag but I took that when I needed a bag to take the mitten out of the house. Just have to make a decision which bag I want to use.


Apart from the never ending shawl, there is one other project missing from this line up; a sock I cast on at the beginning of the year. I decided fairly early on that the yarn and pattern were not a good mix but as I do not have any plans for the yarn and have plenty of other knitting, I have not rushed to frog them.

In the past I would have felt a bit antsy that I had so many projects on the go but I am actually quite happy with this number. Three seemed to have been set aside for working on at a specific time/location and one is a mystery so cannot be worked on all the time and two are very close to being finished.

So many things to show and no time to show them.

I have been doing quite a bit of knitting and sewing just lately as I hurt my foot and was ordered to keep all weight off it. Hubby very nicely set up half of the dining room table for me as my computer/knitting/reading/sewing spot. I have a lot of sewing to show you but in this post I will show two hats that I made for charity. One for Operation Gratitude and the other for Click for Babies.

This is the hat I made for Operation Gratitude. It is crocheted that I started on the drive to vacation and was completed at the end of another vacation. Although it is a fun design it isn’t a mindless project but I thought it would be good for using up scraps of yarn.



The pattern is Brain Waves Beanie – a free pattern on Ravelry.


A friend was encouraging us to make hats for Click for Babies, a charity that raises awareness to new parents that babies do cry – some cry a lot. Surprisingly I did not have any purple yarn in stash so I bought some when I was out on my recent yarn buying trip so that a friend and I could both make hats. I considered this pattern Little Knight Purple Hat as it was specially designed for awareness but as I have made it twice already I decided to find another pattern. Although it is so much quicker to knit a pattern I have made before as there is not all the searching through patterns and trying to make a decision. Anyway I came up with this. Hello Baby Hat and was able to knit it in one evening.



(That's fluff from some other yarn that is showing up very nicely in that close up.)

Another Mystery.

I rather enjoy mystery knit alongs (MKAL) for shawls. A knit along is where a group of people all knit the same pattern at the same time and blog/post on Ravelry/Instagram about their experiences; enjoyment or frustration and ask questions. I have had friendly knit alongs with IRL knitting friends. The Shipwreck shawl started that way and Arlequin ended up being that way as three of us made it.

Some KALs on Ravelry can get very big. For example the recent mystery by designer Joji Locatelli produced nearly 5000 projects, with just under 1500 being finished. And any MKAL by Stephen West garners great attention.

And, of course, there are groups on Ravelry devoted to listing all make alongs, mystery or otherwise. This was how I found the last mystery I made – Notre Dame shawl. That was in spring 2016 so I was really in the mood for another mystery. Although why this was the case I do not know as I really did not need another project on the needles especially as all my projects except the charity project are shawls. Anyway, I checked out the designer and not only had she had a number of mystery knit alongs but her designs were beautiful. I was in! Problem number one: no lace yarn in stash. Problem number two: broken foot limits my ability to get around and thus purchase yarn. These problems were solved by a dear friend who offered to take me yarn shopping. I think it was a chance for her to enable me for a change.

We went last Monday so I had yarn ready for the start on Tuesday. The down side about this was that few yarn stores in our area are open on Monday; although this meant there were just two stores to visit. I did purchase yarn which I am very happy with and both shops were friendly and helpful but they both made the same assumption when we walked (hobbled) in. I was on crutches and the assumption was that I wanted something to do while I was incapacitated and my friend was just there as the driver. We have been in these stores before and usually they are much more interested in our projects. As I said the people in both places were very welcoming and friendly but their lack of interest in what either of us wanted to make was surprising and my friend was not considered as a potential yarn buyer at all.

I bought some purple yarn for a different friend and myself to make new born hats for charity - Click For Babies.

And I bought two skeins of lace weight – Gleem Lace by fyberspates in a lovely tonal grey. I purchased two skeins at Black Sheep and one of the great things about this store is that they wind the yarn for you. So I was ready to go on 1 August when the first clue was released.

Find Your Style

The other day I tried on a sweater that I had knitted but never worn. I had bought a white skirt to wear with the sweater but, also, had never worn because I was worried about wearing a white skirt. I tried on the skirt to see if I still liked it and then a few days later I tried on the sweater - but not with the white skirt - go figure.

The first thing that struck me was how well the sweater fit. Armholes, bust, waist. So the sweater is still not going to be worn until I take all the measurements because I do want to start knitting sweaters again.

The second thing that struck me was how the length defied what Sally Melville had taught in her class on knitting for fit. According to Ms. Melville the sweater should stop at the widest part; as I was wearing straight legged jeans, the widest part were my hips but the sweater was past my crotch. (According to Ms. Melville, the crotch showing is also a good point.) I folded the sweater so that it fell at the widest point and it did not look as good as the original length. I am thinking that this is because the sweater has a low square neckline and needs length for balance. Which goes to show that all clothing rules are arbitrary and you should try many styles to find what suits the best.

Summer Knitting

Summer is here and with that comes outdoor concerts and the never ending shawl. Will this be the year I finish it? I am hopeful but I also feel I could cut it close. I am at the start of the last pattern repeat then there is the garter stitch border and, of course, the bind off. I calculate that to be 6 concerts worth of knitting. There are nine concerts and I have already missed the first one and there is another one I will have to miss. That still leaves me with seven shows. I am motivated to finish this project so that should be enough hours.

Here it is back out in the open.

1(000) More American(s)

Something amazing happened last week – I became an American Citizen.

It was a long journey; not because of the time it takes to become a Citizen but the time it took for me to make the decision. My (now departed) mother-in-law frequently mentioned that I should become a citizen and couldn’t or wouldn’t understand why I did not. But if you have never lived in another country you do not realize what it means to relinquish the Citizenship of your birth and take on a new one. Yes the United States of America is a great country but that doesn’t mean you are going to drop your birth country without a second thought.

I first became eligible to apply for US Citizenship in 2000. At some point I even filled out the forms but that was as far as I got – mostly completed forms. And then in December 2005 we moved – to Canada. A whole new set of paperwork and form filling. At least this time we were all foreigners. While we were there my son and I became Canadian Citizens. I remember not feeling much emotion about it as I was mainly doing it to give our son choices. He really hadn’t had any choice in moving to Canada so it seemed only right that he should have the opportunity to stay if he wanted.

It would have been so much easier if I had become a US Citizen when I had had the opportunity because when we decided to move back to the United States we had to go through the Green Card application all over again. Costing us time and money. It took about 4 ½ months to get the visa, which was quick, but there was the cost of the application plus the cost of travelling to Montreal for the interview as well as having to take time off work.

Having moved back to the United States I was eligible to apply for Citizenship in 2015 but even with the incentive of being able to vote in a Federal election, I still put it off. It took me most of 2016 to fill in the forms. What finally prompted me to complete the process was that fees were increasing at the end of the year and the forms had changed so I had to redo them. I decided that this was going to keep on happening and that there was really no reason not to become a Citizen.

And that’s the thing. There’s no reason not to become a Citizen and plenty of reasons to become a Citizen. But it was still a HUGE deal. I’m not going to go into a long story about by interview. Briefly, the notice said to allow two hours. A friend drove me as husband was away and she didn’t even have a chance to get her knitting out as I was gone for about 15 minutes. It did mean we had the rest of the morning for knitting at Starbucks.

Conversely the notice for the Oath ceremony gave no information. There was a lot of waiting in line and people taking the oath were separate from their friends and family. So you were sitting with complete strangers with one thing in common – today was the day you became US Citizens. The oath is a very serious affair and afterwards I cried, not because I was now an American but because I had renounced the country of my birth, the country I had grown up in, gone to school, established a career, met my husband; where my family still lived. I also felt a sense of relief that I have the right to remain in this country.

Here are some photos of the day. I was sitting in the last row of people, there was no choice where you could sit but this turned out very well as I was not lost in the crowd. Because of where I was sitting, I was one of the last to get my certificate, this meant that I could see and be seen when I exited the hall. As you can see I was very happy to show off my Certificate of Naturalization. (The long piece of paper in my hand is a voter registration form.)

From Vacation to Vacation

From Vacation to Vacation

In this post I showed the yarn for a project I had started on vacation. After vacation it became my easy handbag project It was very easy to work on when watching children.

In February 2016 I purchased Candy Skein’s colour of the month, just because with no particular plan. I saw on Ravelry that someone had knit a Pure Joy with it using a bright pink as contrast. I thought that was a great idea and one day at Yarning for You, I saw the perfect pink. Except I never did cast on Pure Joy. There was something about it that didn’t quite call to me. Then I was shown Arlequin, a free pattern on Ravelry. It had been knit in a gradient yarn and I decided it would be perfect for my two yarns.

I started it on the first day of vacation and worked on it exclusively although I had other yarn. By the last day I was becoming rather bored with it but I resisted starting anything new. My plan was to knit until I ran out of the Candy Skein and then continue with the new yarn. It didn’t quite work out that way. Although that was what I did at first, I (and my knitting friends) didn’t like the change of colour part way through a pattern repeat, so a few rows were pulled out and I started the new colour at the beginning of a pattern repeat.

The bright pink is sock yarn by Malabrigo in the colour Light of Love. I have to say I enjoyed this yarn from winding to knitting to finishing. It is a beautiful tonal yarn that made me smile. My plan for this yarn was to knit until either I liked the length or I ran out of yarn. I ended up using most of the yarn; again finishing with one full pattern repeat rather than just finishing when I ran out of yarn.



And why the title of this post? I started this project on the first day of vacation and finished it a few days before another. This was not the plan. In fact as this was an easy project I thought it would be in progress for a long time. It did mean that I could start a new project on vacation and not worry about not finishing the last project.

Let’s have a LOL. The number of projects on the go is creeping up. I have a complicated shawl that I started when I finished the previous Pi shawl, another shawl that has lace knitting on every row, some mittens with short-row shaping, the new vacation project, the never ending project and a Clapotis. Time to get knitting.

Here’s The Finished Item

Last time I said I was going to post a picture of a finished item but then the post was negative about an item I frogged (which has been restarted as a Clapotis) that I decided the finished item needed to be in a more positive post. So here it is.

I was given some baby yarn at the beginning of the year – two skeins of Bébé Luv – a yarn available in Canada that I hadn’t knitted with before. It is 100% acrylic but seemed ideal for baby clothes. I gave the ball of white yarn to a friend and kept the red to knit something for one of my great-nieces.

I decided to knit for the youngest as the ball was 120 grams which I knew would be enough for a small cardigan. Then of course there was the searching on Ravelry for a pattern. I considered the Easy Baby Cardigan, after all I had only made it three times. But I found a new to me pattern - Provence Leafy Cardigan – I liked the lacey pattern and garter stitch detail.



Oh and I have another finished item that will appear shortly.

A Sigh of Relief AND a Finished Item

Way back in 2011 I bought some yarn because what it was made from was interesting. The fiber content was sugar cane. I hadn’t come across that before and thought it would be interesting to try. It is very slippery and loosely plied doesn’t come anywhere near – there are plys but they are not plied.

I cast on within a week of purchase as I needed an easy pattern to work on while I waited for a friend at a Doctor’s appointment. But I didn’t really like it and it became a no-more project. Not deterred by this I bought another skein of the yarn (different colour) in a sale at the end of 2011 because I had found a pattern that used two different colours. The pattern was hairpin lace crochet which I had never tried nor seen in real life.

Oh my gosh, it was awful. The technique is not hard but I had to remind myself how to do it everytime I picked up the project so I couldn’t pick it up and work on it for a few minutes at a time because I needed that time to look up how to work it. (I did eventually put a link to a tutorial on my project page so that I wasn’t searching for one every time.) If I had worked more consistently/frequently then I wouldn’t have had to look up the method everytime but it was rather boring but fiddly. Also when I took the first piece off the frame it twisted so badly that I had to undo it all. The tutorial suggested a lifetime which I used after that and it was helpful.



I wanted to finish the two never-ending shawls this year. So as hubby was away for a week I set that time aside to finish the hairpin lace. He left, I got out the project bag and I felt dread. I had five completed strips that were joined but I still had to make one more and join it. I couldn't start straight away as I had to go out which turned out to be a good thing. While I was out I had an epiphany – frog the darn thing. So I did. It wasn’t quick or easy because there were lifelines and safety pins but it’s done and I am amazed at the relief I feel no longer having to think about this old project now set to become a Clapotis.

I was going to write about the baby cardigan I finished but after all this negativity I think it deserves its own post.

Another Bag

The last bag I made was a spur of the moment use up the fabric kind of thing. I have been mulling about this bag for a while.

My mother-in-law made quilts and she made table mats; some were quilts and some were appliqué. When we were going through her house after she died I came across a table mat top that she had made but not turned into a mat. It matched a set and a valance that she had in the kitchen which my sister-in-law had chosen to keep. I do not know if she had made five and chosen her favourite four to make into mats or if she was going to make a number of them to give as presents but changed her mind. Whatever the reason, it was something that she had decided to not work on any more but had kept. I decided to keep it although it was very unlikely that I would turn it into a table mat.



It was in the back of my mind that it would make a good project bag. But what size and style as I did not want to lose the integrity of the patchwork. I decided on a zippered bag, the short length of the piece being the width of the bag and bought a zipper when I had a 60% coupon. I, also, wanted to make it slightly bigger as I thought I might box the corners. As the top had some blue in it I chose some blue fabric to add to the top.

I made a number of mistakes in the making of the bag. None of which are obvious to anyone except me and all were remedied or became a “design feature”. (LOL seriously.) The first mistake involved cutting the zipper and might have necessitated another trip to JoAnns. I was on the telephone when I cut the end of the zipper because I thought I could carry on while talking – no. I forgot to open the zipper before cutting so ended up with the pull on the cut off piece. Luckily I had already cut the bottom end off so I was able to put the tab back on. The other silly mistake I made was cutting the lining. I kept the top in one piece but cut the lining in two pieces each half the size of the top. I’d forgotten that the lining would have a seam at the bottom and I didn’t add extra length on to each piece to allow for this. When I was sewing the side seams the top was bigger than the lining and I had to make a pleat at the bottom. This actually turned out well because now the bottom of the bag is slightly boxed and I didn’t box the corners further. Thus you can see all of the patchwork that my mother-in-law made. There was another major mistake I made involving the zipper and extra fabric which I won’t go into but it was a good learning lesson if I want to include the design feature in another bag.

Despite the mistakes I am really pleased with it and it is a good memory of my mother-in-law which I don’t think I would have had as a table mat and definitely not if I had kept it sitting in my fabric stash.

Sewing, Knitting and Ravelry

A couple of finished items – one sewn, one knitted.

Way back in November last year, I posted pictures of the quilt I made for my grandson. This meant I had to make a quilt for my granddaughter and I had to finish it quickly because she told me that I could not give him his until she had one. Even so, I still took about 5 months to come up with a completed project.

I had seen a quilt kit in Missouri Star Quilt Co. catalogue and as I had a charm pack and jelly roll (yes the last of the poor quality ones) I decided to make my own. I also decided to follow the procedures in Quilt as you Go Made Modern. There were advantages and disadvantages of this. The way Jera Brandvig works her quilt as you go, is to sew pieces onto batting squares then sew the squares together to make a quilt top and then add backing. The disadvantage of this method is all the fluff that goes into your machine from the batting and you still have to add some quilting on the whole quilt when you add the backing. I have seen a YouTube video by an Australian quilter who shows how to quilt as you go complete squares and how to join them. One day I will do that. (As an aside, I did clean my machine and change the needle when the quilt was finished.)
The pattern is a modified log cabin (off to google search to see if there is a correct name) and the advantage of Jera Brandvig’s method was that I felt each square had some stability and the quilting was easy but I did not like the thickness of each seam.




I needed fabric to tie all the squares together and purchased the green and the lilac, which are glittery butterflies, for the sashing and borders. Of course I changed my mind once I started sewing the squares and decided to have the lilac on just two sides of each square; my original plan was for each square to be bordered with the lilac. Changing my mind turned out to be a good thing because by the time I got to the binding, I didn’t have any fabric. I could not remember what my original plan was or if I even had had a plan. I did not want to use the backing fabric as it would have been too much of a contrast although I have plenty of it. (The quilt is more than one width’s of fabric.) I did not have enough of either the green or lilac fabric for the binding but by joining them together, alternating colour, I had enough and, I am sure you can agree, it works very well.

Both quilts were duly given to the children and appreciated.

I had a very small amount of the lilac fabric left and just over a very small amount of the green. So I made a bag.




By small amount you can see that I had to join the green and that there was just enough lilac to make the drawstrings. The pink lining you can just see was given to me.

The knitted item that I finished is the hat that I started as part of a KAL and I didn’t think I would finish in time. But I did and I am really pleased with that.



The yarn is Red Heart Soft – not the best yarn for colourwork but I wanted to use something where it didn’t matter what happened to the hat. I already had the Off White in stash and I purchased the Teal when it was on sale. I am mostly pleased with it. There was no row gauge given in the pattern and my hat was already to length when I had finished the snowflake. As it is a slouchy pattern it doesn’t matter that mine is a bit longer but I could have started the colour straight after the rib. As this is a pattern worked in the round, I do not like the way the pattern looks at the round join. Nobody else has mentioned this and I think it would have been less obvious if I had used a wool yarn. It does not show when the hat is worn.

And Ravelry. I mention Ravelry quite a bit in my blog because that is how I find most of the patterns I make. Either by searcing on Ravelry or because it has been mentioned by a friend or in a thread. Recently I listened to a podcast where the creators of Ravelry were interviewed. It’s actually quite a long interview. This is not a podcast I listen to so I do not know if this is standard for her and I do not know if they have given other interviews of such length. I thought some of my readers might find it interesting.

(I have to confess though, the speech is interspersed with multitudes of “you know”s which drove me crazy.)

Knitting Patterns - Again

Following a recent post I want to make it clear that I do not mind paying for knitting (etc) patterns. The point of my post was two-fold:- one: when you buy patterns online you do not know the quality of the item and there is no recourse if it is low quality and two: to compare two different knitting patterns that were vastly different in quality but not in price.

Two things have happened recently. Somebody posted in a group on Ravelry to ask if $6.00 for a pattern for a hat was too much and someone linked on FB to a post written in 2014 by a hat designer about what goes into producing a pattern. I find it interesting that these posts came up within a short time of my post and that they were at opposite ends of the charging debate.

Really what it comes down to, as with any retail business, is what the market will stand. If the designer thinks their pattern should sell for $6.00 and knitters pay that price, then that is the market price for a hat pattern. But if the designer sells only 20 copies at $6.00 but another pattern priced at $5.00 sells 100s of copies, is $5.00 the market price? A difficult question to answer as there are so many contributing factors. Was one pattern featured on a prominent blog/podcast/Ravelry group? Was one pattern by a famous/established designer? In other words we have no idea if price was the only differentiating factor in the number of patterns sold.

From the designer’s blog post it was clear that there were many factors that went into pattern publishing that would be the same amount of time/money regardless of the item. But one thing she wrote in the 2014 post and another thing she wrote recently made me lose some of my sympathy towards her justification of how much she charges. In her post she mentions using open source software. I know programmers willingly make this available but it seems disingenuous to use this in an argument/rant for why patterns cost what they do. Looking at her recent blog posts, she has written that she only updates when she has access to free WiFi. I don’t know if by that she means she buys coffee and uses WiFi or uses WiFi without making any purchase. My thoughts were the latter as she specifically wrote free WiFi. Anyway this particular person has no trouble using what others provide for free while explaining why she charges what she does for patterns and that still isn’t enough.

Started in France

and finally finished.

A couple of posts ago I showed you the finished but unblocked shawl that I started in December 2015 and finished this month. The initial problem was the needles I was using and then I started wondering if I really wanted to knit it at all. In my post-vacation post I said that the yarn would become socks. But as I hadn't a plan, the project never got ripped out. Finally I showed it to one of my knitting friends and she encouraged me to continue. The pattern is not hard but does require concentration because of all the knit two together through back loops. The pattern can be worked in one colour or extra rows added with another colour. I worked until I had completely used up the skein of yarn and then used some left over sock yarn to add another section. Blocking was easy as I just soaked and laid it out. (Rescued it from the cat and laid it out again.) It grew about 30%.

I am not really sure how to wear it but here are a couple of photos.



The yarn is Yummy Fingering Superwash Sock by Candy Skein and the pattern is Spytacular.

And Now What's On The Needles

Despite finishing a number of projects I did not have to start anything new as there are still a few projects on the go. There is a new project I am eager to start but I told myself I had to wait until I had finished my "France project" and started the second colour in my Arlequin Shawl. This post shows the first colour and at the end of the post is the yarn I am using for another shawl - Quadratische. It is a complicated pattern and I try to knit a little on the days when I have time to myself. I am loving it so far.

I've been looking at blog posts for December and January and it appears I did not do a round up for the year, which surprises me as I recall that the knitting/crocheting for 2016 was the lowest for a long time. I was looking to see what I had said about two old projects. Anyway I have two very old projects, one of which is the project that gets worked on at the outdoor concerts, otherwise all the projects on my needles were started this year. In addition to the two shawls, I am working on a hat. It is a Christmas present but I started it as part of a Knit-Along. The KAL finishes on May 1 and it is highly unlikely that I will finish the hat by then but it is started. The problem is that I am not enjoying the knit which I think is due to the combination of yarn and needles, although it is yarn I have used often. I will get this finished by Christmas.

I am very excited about this low number of projects. The number of WIPs has been high for a long time because of the older projects but I have been finishing these gradually and finishing new projects I start. Will 2017 be the year I finish the two old projects?

Some Finished Items

I have four and a bit finished projects to show. The bit is a shawl that is not blocked.

First off the needles was my Pi shawl. A photo of it in progress was shown here and its unblocked state was shown here. The blocking was surprisingly easy. The shawl is big and I thought it would take forever to block although the instructions said to just block the centre part as the mesh was more than a circle. After soaking the shawl and laying it out I did not have to do anything else as the pattern had opened up. The yarn is Findley by Juniper Moon; I was given the pink and the red was in my stash and I used both completely.



I love the finished item; this is the only photo I have so far. The pattern is Shipwreck Shawl available free from Knitty. It is not a hard pattern, in fact the mesh pattern is rather boring. Adding beads broke up the monotony but I complained about that so much. I threaded the beads onto the yarn and that was really such a pain to thread them on the yarn and move them along. I wound my yarn on my swift and did it that way. I thought I would be able to thread the beads and have them on the yarn at regular intervals but that didn't work so I had to move the beads along periodically. It was annoying and made the project not very portable. I looked at project notes to see what others had done and a few had broken the yarn periodically to thread more beads. Some people had changed the way of placing beads. Instead of threading them on the yarn they had placed the beads as they knit. I like the finished effect on my shawl but it is not something I want to repeat for a long time.

Next item was the hat I started on my flight to vacation. I only had a few rows till it was finished. The pattern is Better Late Than Never Beanies available free on Ravelry. In the pattern the brim is worked in the contrast colour but I changed it on mine as Operation Gratitude do no like too much light colour on the hats. The yarn is Vanna's Choice (in stash) and this is my first crocheted project this year. For someone who said they were taking a break from knitting for charity I have made three hats this year.



I finally finished a cardigan that I started in April 2015, frogged and restarted in April 2016, and finished on 31 March this year. A two year project. It has been blocked and worn. The information on the yarn is in this post.



Next item finished was the shawl I started in France in 2015. That was the vacation where every project was a disaster. This is it fresh off the needles. I hope to block it this weekend.



Finally I finished a small hat that was my handbag project. The pattern is Swirl Hat, a free pattern on Ravelry. The yarn is Baby Alpaca Cherish by Plymouth Yarns in the boysenberry colourway. A friend had been to a knitting event and this was one of the giveaways that she had received and was passing on to her knitting group. The pattern is very easy as it is the same every row. This will be a Christmas present.



I have to add that I am very excited that at just past the first quarter I have knitted (crocheted) more yarn than yarn that has come into the stash.

Knitting Patterns

Today’s post is prompted by my recent purchase of two patterns. One I mentioned in my last post and at the moment I will not name the second one as it is by a well-loved designer and from much reading on Ravelry, hell-fire on anyone who critiques one of those designers; although anyone else is fair game. Typical on-line world in other words.

In addition to materials required, yarn, needles etc., from a knitting pattern I expect a good photo showing the item to be knitted in its entirety, a glossary of knitting abbreviations used, and a clearly written pattern. A pattern does not have to be long to provide all this. I also expect it to be error free especially if I have paid for the pattern.

Buying a pattern is very much a matter of trust. The knitter, the consumer, has to trust that they will be sent instructions that will enable them to make the item pictured on Ravelry or the designer’s website. (I am talking about knitting but this applies to crochet patterns. Also sewing and quilting patterns can be purchased electronically.) I was trying to think of another concept to compare it to and came up with going to a new restaurant. You know what is in the meal you’ve ordered but you have to trust that what is put in front of you is an edible combination of those items. A knitting pattern you buy electronically, you know what you want to end up with and hope that you have been given the correct information to get there.

So let’s look at the two patterns I purchased. Firstly the shawl pattern I mentioned last time. The Quadratische Decke shawl.. A pattern that I would say is for an advanced knitter. The designer states that it is an adaptation of a Herbert Niebling pattern, a German designer of fancy, complicated lace pieces. And looking at pictures of the original pattern, it is a major adaptation. I was about to write, I took a leap of faith and purchased the pattern. But I would have to write that every time I purchased a pattern so sounds rather redundant. Plus I have already written above about having to buy on trust. Although if you have already knitted a pattern from that designer you have an idea of their pattern writing style. When I paid for my pattern I received a PDF of 31 pages. The designer included information on all the test knitters with photos of all the test knits; a sample graph to work a test swatch, charts of all 8 patterns, some of which are enlarged at the end of the pattern. It is a very comprehensive pattern and any questions that have arisen are a matter of the novice knitter. I felt I got really good value for money. I am about half way through and have no issues with the pattern.

The other pattern is for a hat and the pattern includes two different styles. The beginning of each hat is different but the body is the same and the pattern is written to reflect this. The pattern starts with version A the instructions ending with continue with the body of the hat; and then version B ending with continue with the body of the hat; and then you get the instructions for the body of the hat. The hat has a pattern and the designer states from where she got the pattern so it is not something she designed herself but she did have to work out how to fit it into the body of the hat.

I have not got very far with this pattern. It is for a Christmas present but I started it as there is a KAL in a group on Ravelry so that was incentive to cast on. Although I have not got very far, I have found one mistake and one area that could have been written differently. The mistake concerns the needles stated in the requirements and the needles stated in the instructions. In the pattern instructions you are told to change needles but to a size that is not included in the requirements. Although the pattern was published three years ago, this discrepancy was pointed out only 5 months ago. The designer said she would update the pattern but she still has not done this. The designer is selling something she knows has a mistake but there’s no complaints because as I said at the beginning you can’t say anything considered negative about this designer.

The area that could have been written clearer concerns the cast on and following pattern. The pattern is a four row repeat with a definite right side and wrong side. The instructions state to cast on with the contrast colour and then you change to the main colour and the four row repeat. Except you are not told which type of cast on to use – I don’t have a problem with that – except some cast ons have a wrong and right side so if you start the repeat on row 1 you know have the wrong side of your cast on facing. Which is fine if that’s what you want. So with these two issues so early on it makes me wonder what else will come up in the pattern that I will have to amend because there is a mistake or less than clear instructions.

I am pointing out what you get with each pattern because I had to pay for both of them and I the difference in quality was obvious but the difference in price was only $1.00. At least the shawl pattern was the more expensive one but considering what you got the price differential does not seem enough. Is the hat pattern too expensive or the shawl pattern too low? My opinion is both. The hat pattern should have been a slightly lower cost and the shawl pattern should have been higher.

Please note these are my opinions based on the quality of the two patterns I received. Neither of which I got a chance to look at before purchase.

Vacation Knitting and Pi Shawls

A lot to cover; will I get it all in in the time I have available or will the title be a lie?

We were away for 10 days at the beginning of the month which means vacation projects that fit in a suitcase as we were flying (in an aeroplane). Firstly I found yarn for a hat and then found a free crochet pattern. I would have finished it if I hadn't fallen asleep on the plane ride home. Oh well, I am taking a break from these anyway, aren't I?

I took the sock project mentioned at the end of this post and a different pattern but I also wanted something really easy but I didn't have anything like that on the needles. OK let's be honest I had started a hat in the middle of February as my easy project but I decided that as it is a baby hat the chances were that I'd finish it quickly and then I'd need another easy project so it would be better to take just one project. I already had yarn and pattern in mind for the next easy project so that was packed. The pattern is Arlequin Shawl, a free pattern on Ravelry and the yarn is Strawberry Shortcake by Candy Skein.



I cast it on the same day we arrived as hubby was working. And I'm glad I did as there was a problem with the needle. There was a slight rough spot on one of the needles and the yarn would sometimes catch on it. With the wonders of the internet I was able to locate a store nearby and visited it the next day. It was a small store with needle work in the front half and yarn in the back. I bought some locally dyed yarn for a friend and a needle for me. They only had two brands of needles and one was bamboo which was a definite no so I bought the other brand, new to me, Lykke. It worked really well and is very smooth to knit with. This was the only project I worked on. I had wound the yarn into a centre pull ball and weighed it when I got home and was surprised that I had used three-quarters of it. It will be a while before I finish it as it is now my easy handbag project.

At the end of February I posted a picture of my Pi shawl and said it was ready to cast off. That was true on that date but about half-way through the cast off I was coming to the conclusion that I was not going to have enough yarn to finish. (The stitches are doubled on the row before bind off so there are over 1000 stitches.) So the bind off and the preceding row were pulled out. Such fun when beads are involved. I started the bind off before we went away and by then I was sick of the project. Having a break from it was good as I finished the bind off on the 14th. It needs to be blocked but I can say that the shawl was started and finished on Pi day.



Then I had it in my head that I had to cast on a Pi shawl on the 14th to finish on 22 July. So I sort of did (such good written English). I have a small amount of lace and light-fingering weight yarn and chose to use one to start a shawl but not Pi shaped. It is QD - Quadratische Decke Shawl a paid-for pattern on Ravelry but so totally worth it. It is going to require concentration but that is fine. The yarn I am using is the yarn shown on the right in this post.

Three Hats

Way back in October, I wrote that I would be taking a break from knitting hats for charity. I had good reasons for my decision but what I didn't take into account is that I always like to have what I call my handbag project. This is a project with no deadline for finishing and can be picked up and put down with ease. This is what my charity knitting used to be until I decided I needed to make an item each month. So a charity project was started in December for my "handbag project". And when I finished that another one was cast on. I have also finished that one as I made myself knit something when I was sick.

So although I declared that I was taking a break, it looks like charity knitting is still part of my work.

This is the hat I started in December and finished in January.



The pattern is Scarlet and is the second time I have knit it. I feel that this one came out bigger but I have no way to check as the first one was sent to Operation Gratitude last year. The blue is the same yarn as the first one but the brown is different so maybe just the brim is bigger.

And this is the hat I started in the middle of January and finished in the middle of February.



I was trying to use up bulky yarn but didn't succeed so I can probably work another exactly the same. The pattern is The Vermonter available free on Ravelry.

Looking at these two hats I wonder why I bother looking for patterns I could just knit a basic hat and add colour/pattern as my mood struck.

The third hat I have finished will be for a gift. Although it will be a Christmas gift I wanted to get it on the needles so that the yarn didn't languish in my stash.



I found the pattern by searching on Ravelry for other projects made with the yarn. It used the whole ball of yarn so I had a number of ends to sew in as I had cut the yarn when working another project plus there had been a knot early on in the yarn which I had undone. I really like the finished item. It is very stretchy and you can turn up a brim so will fit a lot of people. The pattern is by Plymouth Yarn Company, the distributors of the yarn and it can be found here.

My current handbag project is a simple child's hat that will be a gift.

I did buy yarn for the hat I wish to knit for my niece. I chose this yarn as I have quite a bit of cream colour in my stash and the pattern I am planning on making is two colour. I had intended to purchase turquoise but opted for the teal.



The timing was right as it was on sale at Michael's. I seriously debated buying more to use for charity hats but I have decided to wait until I have used up every last inch in my stash.

Some Works in Progress

I meant to throw in some photos of current projects into the last post but forgot.



This is the pi shawl I cast on on 22 July with the aim to finish on 14 March. This should have been easy to achieve but I didn't work on it at all in November so there was a lot of catch up needed. I am now on target and ready to bind off.



This is the hat I mentioned in the last post. I really want to finish this this weekend so that I have a finished item and skein of yarn out of the stash in February.



And this is a sock I am going to frog. I cast these on at the beginning of January but haven't really worked on them. The yarn is by Candy Skein and I wrote about it here. It is hard to choose a pattern that will go well with this yarn but now there are more projects on Ravelry in this colorway and I have decided that a pattern that is predominantly stocking stitch will work well. I have chosen another pattern but not started yet as it will be my March cast on.

Too Sick to Knit or Read

And I've wanted to write this post bemoaning this fact for quite a few days but I've been too sick to write.

I've been sick for two weeks. The first week was filled with me saying I'm getting better and I'd surround myself with books and knitting and laptop but all I'd end up doing was watching tutorials from The Missouri Star Quilt Company. A pretty brainless occupation. The second week was pretty much the same although I did push myself to work on my Pi shawl each day as the finishing date is very close.

The knitting on the Encore striped hat is finished but I cannot muster the energy to kitchener the seam. There are 70 stitches, so not a task to be undertaken lightly at the best of times. But once I have done that I just need to sew in ends (and there are a few as I had to use every inch of yarn) and the hat is finished. Maybe that needs to be my Sunday morning project as it would be nice to have it completely finished in February. My cardigan is also waiting for a bit of energy. I worked until it was the same length as the cardigan shown in this post and then put the stitches on waste yarn. I want to block it to see how the length/width changes before I bind off or work more rows but that requires too much thought right now.

I did manage to finish a hat for charity because I really put my mind to it. And now I find I need more yarn. I have plenty of scraps and a pattern designed for scraps but it will not work as a handbag project. I was going to make a hat for my niece with the navy yarn I originally purchased for this project. But I will use it for charity hats and buy a different yarn for the gift. Either way I have to purchase yarn.

Going back to being too sick to knit or read. It strikes that if one is lazing around the house doing nothing, one should still be able to do the things one loves. At least I could still drink coffee.

A Little Stash Enhancement

I started off writing that I had gone nearly a month without buying yarn and then I thought but I frequently do that. And just a quick look at my stash shows that I bought yarn at the beginning of October and then didn't buy again until the end of December. And that yarn was all for gifts. So it must be the beginning of the year that made me aware that no yarn buying had occurred.

Before I tell you what yarn I bought, let me tell you what yarn I didn't buy. My knitting friend that I meet once a week for knitting (at Starbucks - love it) told me that one of the local yarn stores had got in a shipment of Hedgehog Fibers and I should go quickly if I was interested. I seriously thought about it but decided not to, mainly because the Yarnover Truck was coming to town.

A couple of weekends ago it made an appearance at the brewery where my Tuesday night knitting group meets. I like to support the "truck" because I would like them to remain in business. They carry different yarns, none on the low end, and have many of the yarns knitted up into patterns.

This time rather than looking at patterns beforehand and then hoping to find yarn that would work with at least one, I decided to buy yarn that caught my eye and buy enough to knit something but I was to try to avoid fingering weight as I have quite a bit of that especially tonals and variegateds.

And this is what I got:



I have heard of Western Sky Knits but never seen it in person and the yarn was beautiful. I was very tempted by a deep blue that was available in different weights but decided that could be a purchase next time I visit the Truck.

The colours will be worked together into a shawl but I am not showing a photo of them together as the one I took gave a blue tinge to the grey yarn.

What's On The Needles

After the recent finishing flurry, although, it could be argued that the finishing flurry was caused by a cast on flurry, I had a chance to look at what was already on my needles and choose what to work on next.

Apart from the new cast on of an easy hat pattern that is. I was worried that if the striped Encore went into the stash it would never get used so I found a simple but new to me pattern and got it started. Also I had finished the charity hat, which I call my handbag project, and started a new one.

I took the socks out of their project bag but I haven't quite made up my mind to frog them although I do have another project in mind for the yarn. So I picked up the cardigan and knitted some on that.

I have to say I was very happy when I picked it up as I knew I was at the sleeves but I had to wind the yarn and pick up stitches from waste yarn. So I was very pleasantly surprised when I opened the bag and not only was the yarn wound but one set of sleeve stitches were on the needle. I wish I could say that there are yarn fairies but this must have been something I did way before Christmas when grandchildren were asleep or with their parents. Anyway I was very happy to just be able to pick up the yarn and needles and start knitting.

Some Thought Did Go Into The Process

Although I seriously doubt it.

I decided to knit a hat for my niece's boyfriend. I chose a pattern before I bought yarn which is the black tweed yarn shown in the bottom right corner in this post. It is Monte Donegal from Plymouth Yarns; a mix of alpaca, merino, acrylic and rayon. It is a lovely soft yarn. The pattern I chose was the Antler Touque by Tin Can Knits.

So far so good until I looked at gauge. The pattern has a gauge of 18 stitches and the yarn is 20 stitches. I know the recipient has a big head and as I was already planning to knit the largest size, what did I decide to do? Go up a needle size. I knew this was crazy. I know that I tend to knit to the gauge stated on the ball bands of large yarn companies, I know that going up a needle size would make a looser fabric. BUT I STILL DID IT. And guess what, after casting on 106 stitches, joining without twisting, (I feel like that should be in all caps too), and ribbing a few rows I knew it was wrong and I should work with the recommended needle size. So did I re-cast on with smaller needles? No. I decided I needed a completely different pattern with a gauge that matched the yarn.

I came up with this pattern. I thought it was a cable pattern but two stitches go over two stitches whereas with a cable the stitches cross in front of or behind other stitches. After pulling the needles out of the original cast on and before ripping it out completely I stretched the rib to see how wide the hat was and it was plenty wide but I was so set on the other pattern it never occurred to me to just cast on the same pattern with smaller needles. I think I was worried about how much the cables would pull in the main part of the hat.

The pattern was a quick knit and easily memorized. I added more rib rows to the bottom and added an extra eight rows of pattern before the decreases. I used one whole ball of yarn. I'll include a photo to show how much yarn was left, against my laptop as reference. Which means I have one complete ball left over but that can become fingerless gloves at Christmas. The hat is amazingly stretchy so I am confident it will fit and the "cables" show up nicely even though the yarn is dark.

Baby Clothes Are In The Mail

I've already posted a photo of the blanket I made and last time I posted a photo of the yarn I purchased. Now we have a photo of all the items I made.



Starting at top right, going clock-wise, there is a Wee Bean. I have knit this pattern before - see here. This is a simple top-down baby jacket pattern. The yarn is Red Heart Soft and I had quite a bit of the Off-White left over from the Eloise sweater I crocheted a couple of years ago. Despite various other projects and this jacket, I still have one complete ball. The orange is also left over from that project. My original intent was to work all the garter ridges in the orange but after the first one I changed my mind but also didn't want that to be the only orange in the piece so I worked one row before the bind off and the bind off in orange and all the garter stitch edging on the sleeves in orange.

The hat is also a pattern I have knit before. Obviously I like it. It is small but stretchy.

Next project along is the cardigan I started after I decided not to work the two colours of Encore in the same pattern. It is another Taiga Hilliard design - Little Avery. Again it is an easy top-down cardigan. I had 20 grams of yarn left over so rather than putting it with the left overs and never using it, I searched for a hat pattern and made the Embossed Leaves Hat. This is also very stretchy. I really like this pattern and can see myself knitting it again in an adult size.

Next item is another top down cardigan knit with the Magic Garden yarn. This is another pattern that I have made before but this time I have marked my project page to not make it again as I do not like the pattern, which I remembered when I was knitting but not before. I continued anyway. I did not use all the yarn I purchased but chose not to make anything else as I think this is garment-yarn not next-to-the-skin-yarn.

And the final item is the blanket which I showed in a post earlier this month.

All these were mailed on Tuesday. I hope that they don't take too long to arrive - the last parcel I sent to the UK (different address) took a month - and I hope that the parents like the items.

Buy Yarn, Cast On, Frog, Repeat

At the end of last year I bought some yarn specifically for gifts. Common Threads in Encinitas was having a post-Christmas sale and I went with the specific purpose of buying yarn for gifts.

I got yarn for all of the projects I planned. Two baby cardigans and an adult hat.




The baby items are for the baby due this month so I started one straight away and when I finished it I cast on the next one. Except I didn’t like it. I was using two strands of worsted weight yarn together and the fabric was too stiff. So I ripped it out. I could have re cast on with larger needles but then the size would have been bigger than I wanted. I looked for another pattern where I could stripe the two yarns. The pattern I found was written for sport weight yarn so I had to do a lot of adjusting and about half-way through I decided I really didn’t like it. So it was pulled out. I wish I had made that decision before cutting the coloured yarn when I worked the sleeves. Oh well. Finally I decided to just cast on the white yarn and that is successful.

While the frogging of the knitting projects was going on, I was trying to crochet a baby hat. From the library I had checked out Crochet One-Skein Wonders For Babies and I thought I would crochet a small hat using yarn left over from the red hat. I have made this hat twice with the same yarn so did not want to make a third but thought that a different hat in the same yarn would like nice. Ha. So wrong. The first pattern I tried the gauge was too big, so I started again with a smaller hook but the pattern didn’t really show so my second attempt was pulled out. I tried another pattern in the same book and that started to come out too too big so I gave up.

And then there’s the socks I started at the beginning of January which I haven’t worked on for a while because of all the baby things I have been knitting and because I’m not sure if I want to continue with the pattern.

But all is not doom and gloom, next time there will be photos of finished items.

Final Projects of the Year

I finished two baby projects at the end of last year and here is one of them. (The other one is a hat that goes with a jacket that is awaiting buttons so I will post those together.) My younger nephew is expecting a baby in January. So, of course, I had to make a blanket as every grandbaby has got one. I had yarn left over from this blanket, so it seemed to make sense to find a pattern where I could use this yarn. I really liked this one but decided that there was not enough contrast with the colours I had but definitely a pattern to be considered for future babies. This is the one I decided on although the pattern is written for sport weight yarn which is slightly thicker than the 4-ply of my yarn but I used size 4 mm needles as that was the size I had used on the first blanket. Plus it is a blanket so getting the same gauge and size is not crucial.

With this pattern, the coloured wedges are achieved with short rows and almost immediately I was reminded that I hate the look of short rows in garter stitch but I carried on in the hope that the recipients would not be bothered by it in the same way that I am. I still have yarn left over but there will not be a third blanket.



As this was finished last year I included the yarn used in last year's total. Alas no yarn out yet for this year.

2016

It’s that time of year again. A summary of my knitting and did the stash go up or down?

In 2016 I had 32 projects on the go. None of this number is a frogged project although one project was frogged and restarted. 8 are WIPS.
Of the six projects that were on the needles at the start of 2016, three are finished, one is the previously mentioned frogged and restarted and two are never ending.

Only two of these projects were crocheted; I made 9 hats for charity and 9 gifts. I completed 13 hats, five pairs of socks, three shawls, a cardigan, a toy and a baby blanket.

I am starting 2017 with eight projects in progress – one cast on at end of year, one waits buttons, one handbag project, one I should frog, pi shawl (aiming to finish on 14 March), the cardigan that was restarted and two never ending shawls.

I did not do well with yarn in and out. The amount of yarn in measured by metres was not quite double the amount used and balls of yarn added to the stash was three times the number out. But as a ball has to be completely used before it is recorded as out, this number does truly reflect that I am working through stash, so this year I will add another number – new balls of yarn started. I hope this will reflect better how much yarn I am using.

At the start of each year, I look at my stash (not physically, the list I have on a spreadsheet) and decide what plans I have for my yarn and what order I would like to knit it. This is not set in stone but can change when I get new yarn, there is a KAL or I just feel like knitting a certain type of item, project or yarn. In past years this has helped me decide to sell yarn. This year I changed the list quite a bit as I will be starting the New Year by knitting baby items as well as participating in a KAL.

Thanks to Ravelry and how I tag my projects, I can see how many projects I have each year and this is my lowest year since 2008. So I am looking forward to a productive 2017.